User talk:Toughpigs
|} Great to have a member of staff helping out at Literawiki, all the best — RC-1136 Hate Mail Here 09:54, 14 April 2009 (UTC) Welcome tool Hello again, I'd like to just say I think the welcome tool is a really great idea and well made, but for this wiki I considered it to be unneeded: I turned it off partly because I find that with so few editors in the recent changes I am capable of welcoming each one individually with a message specific to them, for instance, I noted that you are a member of staff in my message to you, obviously this is only a minor difference, but the main reason I turned it off is because nearly all the anon contributors here are vandals, as has just perfectly demonstrated. Therefore I like my first message to them to be a warning and a (albeit dampened) welcome, as a immediate welcome will probably only encourage them to continue their vandalism. However, I will turn it back on for user's and anons if you think the tool would still dramatically help encourage the minority of new users and anons that constructively contribute to Literawiki to continue to do so, as you obviously have far more experience as to how this tool works in action, so an opinion would be great and I will certainly be more then happy to do whatever you suggest. I know you have already said that you think we should turn it back on, but I'd like you to just read my reasons for turning it off, then tell me what you think again, and as I said I'll be 100% happy to do what you say. On a related subject, is it at all possible to generate the welcoming users user name using one of the $x "codes"? all the best — RC-1136 Hate Mail Here 17:49, 14 April 2009 (UTC) :Yeah, we could fix all those things. :) That's why I asked -- there's a lot of possible customization, which sometimes folks don't know about. :First up -- if you're having problems with anon contributors, we could actually switch this wiki over to login-only. There are a handful of wikis on Wikia that do that. Instead of an edit button, anons would see a "log in to edit" button, and clicking that would give them a friendly message that encourages them to log in and join the community. Everybody who contributes has a username, which makes it easier to talk to them and recognize them, and it's also a lot easier to track and block vandals. So that's an option; let me know if you want to do that. :If you don't want to do that -- then you can edit the welcome message for anons here -- MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon. Personally, my opinion is that the risk of leaving a friendly message for vandals is better than the risk of leaving a warning/damp welcome for good contributors. Basically, it's better to treat everyone like a potential new friend than to treat everyone like a potential vandal. But that stuff is up to you; it depends on what kind of tone you'd like to set for the community. :The one thing that I know for sure is that if you wait a few hours to welcome an anon contributor, it's likely that they won't get the message. Most IP addresses are dynamic, so the next time that person visits the wiki, they won't see it. The welcome tool helps you to actually communicate effectively with anon contributors, because they get the message right away. :Also -- you can use $4 to insert the contributor's name, so "Welcome, $4!" will say "Welcome, Toughpigs!" or whatever the name is. :So... that's a lot of text... Let me know if I can help you out with any of this stuff. :) -- Danny (talk) 18:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC) ::Righto, lets see, I think I'll have to turn down the offer to make Literawiki login-only, but thanks. I've re-enabled the tool, you convinced me. Just going to layout what I've done in case it interests you: the tool will only welcome users and anons, it will not create userpages, personally I think its better that way. I've edited MediaWiki:Welcome-message-user so that it uses our standard welcome message, but slightly changed, partly because I was mucking around having fun with the $x's, but also because we can't use our normal text: talk page! so instead I've changed it to "ask me at $2", it'd be nice to be able to make it something like: talk page! but that's not possible at the second because that just ends up generating [[User Talk:RC-1136|talk page]]!, it would be good if the $2 recognized if it was already inside a link and didn't try to re-link, if you follow? But thats not a major problem. I've also made a welcome for anons MediaWiki:Welcome-message-anon, which is our standard welcome, bur balanced as to how friendly it is, I've only just noticed that so I may end up editing the welcome message for anons, because as you said, not much harm done if a message to a vandal is overly friendly, but we don't want to put off potential constructive editors, so I will edit that message shortly, to make it a little more welcoming, as a welcome should be. Thanks for all your help — RC-1136 Hate Mail Here 18:42, 14 April 2009 (UTC) :::Awesome! I helped to fix up the welcome message -- I think it does actually work the way that you wanted it to, with links and everything. I just tested it out at User talk:Dannytest11, so you can see what it looks like. I think that anon message is actually fine -- you're being friendly and encouraging them to log in and be part of the community. That sounds great! :::By the way -- something else occurred to me while I was looking at the site. Your pagetitle just says "Literawiki", which isn't very helpful with search engines. Google pays a lot of attention to what's in the pagetitle when they generate results. Somebody who's searching for "literature" won't find this site, since it just says "Literawiki". It would be better if it said "Literature Wiki", or "Literature Wiki - Literawiki". If you're interested, I could help you out with that part. Let me know! -- Danny (talk) 19:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC) ::::Thanks. I agree it'd be a good idea to have it say "Literature Wiki", could you instruct me how to do this? One other thing, if I place "@sysop" at MediaWiki:Welcome-user, will new users be welcomed by the local admin who edited must recently or do I need to place "@latest" as well? I'm guessing just "@sysop" would be fine, but I'd like to be sure. Thanks again for the help, — RC-1136 Hate Mail Here 14:39, 15 April 2009 (UTC) :::::Great! I took care of both of those, so you don't have to worry about them... The pagetitle is fixed now, and @sysop is correct. :) -- Danny (talk) 16:41, 15 April 2009 (UTC) Thanks for everything Danny, — RC-1136 Hate Mail Here 18:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC) :You're welcome! Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with. -- Danny (talk) 23:07, 15 April 2009 (UTC)